How many characters is enough?

[BobO]

Documentation fields, that is. Is 32 enough? Do we need more? No...unlimited is not an option.

Sound off!

[plcnut]

After learning to live with 16; I believe that 32 will be enough.

[Controls Guy]

Wait, I'm confused.  We can already have descriptions longer than 32 characters, can't we?  It's got to be like 4x12 or 5x12 or something, seems like.  Or are you talking about nicknames specifically?

[ADC Product Engineer]

Just to throw this out there, C-more has a 40 character limit.

[BobO]

Wait, I'm confused.  We can already have descriptions longer than 32 characters, can't we?  It's got to be like 4x12 or 5x12 or something, seems like.  Or are you talking about nicknames specifically?

We're talking about increasing nicknames and wiring info to 32, and descriptions would grow to 6x32 (they are currently 6x16).

[BobO]

Just to throw this out there, C-more has a 40 character limit.

That was another number we've kicked around. Any insight into how they arrived at that?

[Tark]

It seems I always need one more character than what's available, so whatever you decide on, make it +1

32 characters would work for me.

Since you brought it this up, it would be nice to be able to use other non-alphanumeric characters other than the underscore.

[BobO]

Since you brought it this up, it would be nice to be able to use other non-alphanumeric characters other than the underscore.

We really can't. Since nicknames are actual symbols that can be used anywhere as a replacement for element names, they have to follow a restricted format that works within the grammar of the places they are used. The most common characters you might use are already part of the math expression grammar, and we still have plans to expand the math grammar to a full ST type language. With that in mind, we chose what is essentially a C style symbol definition.

[ADC Product Engineer]

Just to throw this out there, C-more has a 40 character limit.

That was another number we've kicked around. Any insight into how they arrived at that?

IIRC it was the minimum number of characters to support AB tag names for Ethernet IP in order to make them unique.

[ATU]

What about a decimal point in the name?  It would be nice to have some pseudo name space.  I think if you are going to use 40 characters, you should just go ahead make it 64. Maybe down the road, you might need it?

[BobO]

What about a decimal point in the name?  It would be nice to have some pseudo name space.  I think if you are going to use 40 characters, you should just go ahead make it 64. Maybe down the road, you might need it?

I think the number will be 32, but we will look at making it easier to change in the future.

I'm sure we could do about anything we want as far as embedding stuff, the question is simply how painful the parsing becomes and how patient our users are when the never ending stream of side effects show up. When you can mix all of the valid elements and nicknames, and in some cases even combinations of both (for instance, T[MyIndexNN].Acc), in with full expressions with nested function calls, tossing in random punctuation isn't conducive to simplicity.

But seriously, I've been coding with C symbol rules for my entire professional career and I haven't once been frustrated that I couldn't embed a pound side or dollar or ampersand or whatever. I camel case for clarity, and might add an underscore when I need an additional level of division. "MyObject_Field" isn't meaningfully different in practice than "MyObject.Field", is it?

And remember that you will be able to create your own data types. Rather than creating pretend structs with dots in nicknames, you will be able to create real structs.

[ATU]

 we will look at making it easier to change in the future.

Future proofing is good.

And remember that you will be able to create your own data types. Rather than creating pretend structs with dots in nicknames, you will be able to create real structs.

I'll be saying to the young engineers," Why back in my day, all we had was 16 characters for a tag name ...."

[BobO]

I'll be saying to the young engineers," Why back in my day, all we had was 16 characters for a tag name ...."

Nah...worse: "Back in my day all we had were 1s and 0s, and some of us even had to use pointy sticks for 1s."

[BobO]

And one other thing...

In our discussions about adding a documentation grouping mechanism, we did discus the possibility of treating the group name act like a class name, hence "Group.Item" might become a reality, not as an adornment of a nickname, but as a legitimate object concept. I'm also thinking that if a documentation group could be flagged as belonging to a program or task block, scoping might fall out of that. But I don't want to overly complicate it from the onset, preferring to get the basic group thing working and see where it leads.

[plcnut]

And one other thing...

In our discussions about adding a documentation grouping mechanism, we did discus the possibility of treating the group name act like a class name, hence "Group.Item" might become a reality, not as an adornment of a nickname, but as a legitimate object concept. I'm also thinking that if a documentation group could be flagged as belonging to a program or task block, scoping might fall out of that. But I don't want to overly complicate it from the onset, preferring to get the basic group thing working and see where it leads.

I have been in C#.NET land for the past 2 months, so this is music to my ears (Where is the jumping up and down with excitement emoticon?).

And I personally have no use for anything more than Alphanumerics and underscores in a nickname.